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CTtie ttlan ID ho Marrie 



Lincoln's Parents 




An Address By 
REV. WILLIAM E. BARTON, D. D., LL. D. 



The Man Who Married 

Lincoln's 
Parents 

An Address by 
REV. WILLIAM E. BARTON, D. D., LL. D. 



Delivered at the Dedication of a Monument at the 
Grave of Rev. Jesse Head and Jane Ramsey Head, 
his Wife, in Spring Hill Cemetery, Harrodsburg, 
Kentucky, Thursday, November 2, 1922. 



HARRODSBURG, KENTUCKY 

Published by 

The Harrodsburg Herald 

1922 







RF.V. JKSSK KKA1) 



921 



The Man Who Married Lincoln's Parents 

An Address in Memory of 

REV. JESSE HEAD 

by 

WILLIAM E. BARTON 



We are assembled in a place appointed for the burial of the dead, but 
we have not come to mourn. The man around whose grave we stand came 
to the end of his earthly life in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh 
in its season. He had lived his three score years and ten and had continued 
four years longer upon borrowed time. His faithful wife, who sleeps by 
his side, lived until she was more than four score years of age. There was 
no occasion for bitter grief at the time of their death; they had lived their 
honest, virtuous and completed lives. Death had for them no terror, and 
the grief of tho?e who remained behind was grief without a sting. Even if 
there had been sorrow at the time, and there appears to have been no occas- 
ion for it. there would be no reason for it now. It is more than eighty years 
since Jesse Head died. Mark Anthony at Caesar's funeral is supposed by 
Shakespeare to have said that he came to bury Caesar, not to praise him. 
Quite other is the case with us. We came not to bury Jesse Head, but to 
pay him a tribute of honor. We are assembled to unveil above the hitherto 
unmarked grave of Jesse Head and his wife a simple but dignified and dur- 
able monument that shall perpetuate the memory cf the last resting place 
of these two simple but sincere and earnest servants of God. 

It is not the memory of a funeral that calls us together; it is rather a 
reminder of a wedding. That wedding was one of the many in which Jesse 
Head had a share. The court records of this county of Mercer, as well as 
those in Washington county, bear witness to the frequency with which he 
was called upon to solemnize marriages. The one we have in mind was at the 
time in no important respect different from the others. It was a backwoods 
wedding and it was celebrated after the usual boistrous fashion of such fes- 
tivities, on the Beech Fork, in Washington county. The house in which the 
marriage occurred then stood in the name of Richard Berry. 



Through the enterprise and public spirit of Hon. W. W. Stephen- 
Bon, Mr. X. I.. Curry and others, the logs <>f that building were saved 
from oblivion, and stand re-erected in the historic cabin, hard by the 
site of the old Fort of Harrodsburg, It is that wedding which asso- 
ciates the name of Jessi Head with that of the Lincoln family, and 
- tin- perpetual remembrance of the name of Jesse Head. That mar- 
riage occurred on Thursday. June 12, 1806. Thomas Lincoln, aged 28, was 

• I in marriage to Nancy Hanks, aged 23, 

For more than seventy years the r« >rd of this marriage was unknown. 
.Abraham Lincoln himself was not aware that the record existed. His mother 
n 1818, and his father in 1851. Up to that time he had had no occasion 
aire particularly concerning the I his family. Not until after 

his debate with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 did he emerge into national 
politics, ami find himself" in request for information concerning his ancestors. 
The natural place to look for such record was in Hardin county, for Thomas 
Lincoln had owned land there as early as 180:'.. and that county was the 
home of the Hanks family. But in 1805 Lincoln had returned to Washington 
county where his widowed mother had residi d since the death of her hu.- 
band in 1780. and where the two elder brothers of Thomas, Mordecai and 
Josiah, continued to live. There also Nancy Hanks, an orphan, was in resi- 
. the Berry family apparently being relatives. Neither Abraham Lin- 
coln nor anyone else during his life time discovered the record, for no one 
thought of looking for it in Washington county. There was a tradition in 
Washington county, however, that the marriage had occurred within its 
bounds. Mrs. C. S. H. Yawtor does not appear to have been wholly accurate 
in all her records and opinions, but this she certainly did in that she pub- 
l ouisville Courier of April 14, 1S74, her statement that, having 
gone to Washington county as a school teacher in 1859, she there heard at 
the time of Abraham Lincoln's nomination for the Presidency the statement 
of an old man that the parents of Abraham Lincoln had been married in 
that county in the home of Francis Berry. How much this publication had 
to do with the discovery of the record, may perhaps be matter of dispute; 
but the tact is that four years later, in 187*. .Mr. William F. Booker, County 
Clerk of Washington county, discovered the marriage bond, signed by 
Thomas Lincoln and the second Richard Berry, dated June 10, 180G, and a 
marriage return certifying the wedding of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks 
on June 12, 180G, by Jesse Head, a deacon in the Methodist Kpiscopal Church. 

But who was this Jesse Head'.' Conference records and other official 

sources were searched in vain. Rev. E. I'.. Heed, a grandson, gave rather 

meager information. So little was learned about Jesse Head in 1878, or in 

tin- fortj years that followed, that there were those who Creel] charged that 

LCh minister existed, and that the record was a forgery, created for 



the purpose of disproving the charge that Abraham Lincoln was an illegiti- 
mate child. When I first set about the gathering of material for a book, 
published in 1920, bearing the title, "The Paternity of Abraham Lincoln," 
the information which 1 found available was so meager that I was compelled 
to institute an investigation upon my own account. The first documents, ex- 
cepting the marriage record itself, which had any important bearing upon 
this question, were some which I was able to locate in a personal investiga- 
tion in Washington county. In this matter I was assisted by the County 
Attorney, Hon. Joseph Polin, and subsequently, and to a larger extent, by 
Hon. Lafe S. Pence, of Lebanon, Kentucky. Through the efforts of these 
friends and such investigation as I was able myself to make, the career of 
Jesse Head in Washington county emerged and took form, and Mr. Pence 
has himself written the substance of it in a series of articles printed in Leba- 
non. 

Far greater, however, is my obligation to Miss Mary A. Stephenson, 
whose prolonged and diligent search, in which she has been assisted by her 
sister, Miss Martha, has resulted in the recovery of virtually the whole his- 
tory of Jesse Head, from 1810 to 1842; for in the former year, he removed 
from Washington county to Mercer and here in Harrodsburg he spent the 
last thirty-two years of his life. But for the labor of Miss Stephenson we 
should not be holding this celebration. Here Jesse Head's widow remained 
after his death until she also died. Their bodies at first were buried in the 
garden of his own home, but later were removed to this cemetery, where 
today we are erecting this memorial. 

It had been my hope that Miss Stephenson would consent to give to us 
today an account of the life and work of Jesse Head, particularly that part 
which he spent in Harrodsburg. She has declined this suggestion and I will 
not attempt to do what I hope she will yet do over her own signature. Let 
me, however, briefly outline the life of the man, whose grave we today are 
marking. 

Jesse Head, son of William Edward Head, was born June 10, 1768, in 
Frederick county, Maryland. On April 10, 1768, was born in Bradford county, 
Pennsylvania, Jane Ramsey, to whom he was married January 9, 1789. About 
1795, he migrated from Maryland to Kentucky and made his home on Road 
Run, not far from the Lincolns and Berrys. His farm consisted of fifty-four 
acres. His name is not found in the Washington county tax lists of 1792 
or 1795, but in the next list which has been discovered, that of 1797, his 
name appears. It recurs in the lists of 1800, 1801, 1803, 1804, 1805. Many 
of the lists have perished. It is probable that if all had been preserved we 
should find him continuously living in Washington county from 1796 to 1810. 
He had a farm and owned horses, never less than one and sometimes as 



many as three, but he owned four lots in the town of Springfield, and there 
he resided during the greater part of the period of his residence in Washing- 
ton county. He was a cabinet maker and a justice of the peace. On April 
3, 1802, he became a trustee of the town of Springfield, and on June 10, 
became president of the Board of Trustees. His office as justice of the 
peace began January G, 1798. From that date until October 10; 1810, when 
he signed his last court order in Washington county, his signatures to official 
documents are numerous. His duties judicial and ecclesiastical did not pre- 
vent his performance of his work as a carpenter. To him was committed 
the erection of a whipping post, stocks and pillory in the Courl House Square 
at Springfield. 

Jesse Head was entitled to solemnize marriages as a justice of the peace, 
but his marriages were not performed in that capacity. His official returns 
were signed, Jesse Head, D. M. E. <'., by which he meant Deacon in the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. Until now it has been impossible to give any 
clear statement of his ecclesiastical standing. In 1020 was published "The 
Journal of the Western Conference for the Years 1800-1811." In this volume 
it was recorded that at a meeting of the Conference, held at Anthony Hous- 
ton's in Scott county, Kentucky, October 2, 1806, Bishop Asbury presiding, 
Head was in good standing as a deacon. This is so far as I know the 
only extant record of his standing as a minister. This is early enough to 
cover the marriage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks; but this was not 
the beginning of his ministry. Mr. Pence found in Washington county a 
book of "Court Martials" from 1796 to 1812, in which was the record of the 
men charged with evading militia duty. On May 2.".. 1708, it was recorded 
that Jesse Head, who had been returned as delinquent, was "cleared off the 
muster roll, he having a license to preach according to the rules of the sect 
to which he belongs." The original ordination of Jesse Head as a deacon 
must have been at least seven years earlier than the Conference n 
cited. The records of that period, both civil and ecclesiastical, are meager 
and fragmentary; but these two are sufficient. They certify to us Jesse 
Head's ecclesiastical standing in the ministry of his own denomination, and 
the recognition of that standing by the civil and military authorities of the 
county in which he lived. 

Living as he did in the county seat and seldom if ever being long absent 
on a circuit, Jesse Head was available for marriages. A very large propor- 
tion of the couples married in Washington county, prior to 1S1I), were mar- 
ried by him. He did not make his returns for each marriage separately, but 
,-i -nt in his record at intervals of several months, certifying a dozen or fif- 
teen marriages on the same sheet. His handwriting was legible. Invariably 
he signed his name with a long S in his name Jesse. 1 suppose it to have 
been his availability as well as his being a neighbor and a friend of the 



Lincoln* and the Berrys which caused him to he called to solemnize the mar- 
riage of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks; for the Lincoln family and the 
Hankses were Baptists. 

In 1810, as already stated, he removed to Harrodsburg, where he bought 
a lot on the site of the present Hotel Harrod, nearly opposite the Court 
House. There he established his shop, the making of coffins being no small 
part of his trade. 

He must have been acquainted in Harrodsburg at a considerably earlier 
period. On November 25, 1845, more than thirty years before the name of 
Jesse Head was given publicity in connection with the marriage of the Lin- 
colns, General Robert B. McAfee, in a letter to Dr. Lyman C. Draper, said: 

"The Harrodsburg Springs were first discovered by the Rev. Jesse Head, 
a Methodist clergyman, in 1806." 

If General McAfee was correct in this, then Harrodsburg owes one of 
its chief distinctions to Mr. Head, and he made the discovery in the very 
year in which he married the parents of Abraham Lincoln. It is quite possi- 
ble that it was his faith in these springs which caused him to remove his 
residence from Springfield to Harrodsburg. 

In November, 1811, Jesse Head was elected a trustee of the town, and 
in 1813 he became chairman of the board. Very many of the town records 
are in his clear and legible handwriting. In 1815, he resigned as trustee on 
account of his removal from town; but in 1819 he was back again in Har- 
rodsburg, for again he was elected a trustee and served as chairman of the 
Board in March of that year. He was a member of the Board almost contin- 
uously until 1827, often acting as chairman. 

In those years he married many couples. Dr. Christopher Columbus 
Graham, the proprietor of the Harrodsburg Springs, being among those 
whose marriages he solemnized. 

I have not discovered that Jesse Head was ever ordained an elder in 
the Methodist church. The eldership was understood to involve the riding 
of a circuit; and Jesse Head, in the language of the Methodist ministry in 
that day, was "located." We have numerous, and as I judge, reliable tra- 
ditions, about his preaching in and about Harrodsburg and other towns; and 
he appears to have been active in connection with the early history of Meth- 
odism in Lexington. I do not find, however, that he was ever pastor of a 
church in that city, and he certainly was not pastor of the Methodist church 
in Harrodsburg, for that was founded in 1827, and the list of its ministers 
is complete and does not include the name of Jesse Head. He preached as 
many other pioneer ministers preached, working with his hands and riding 
on horsback to his various appointments. His was a service of which there 
was no record, save that which is kept in the books of the Recording Angel. 



liut who can estimate the heroism, the sacrifice and the value of services 
such as he performed in the pioneer days of this county and commonwealth? 
In 1830, Jesse Head, in association with his sen. Bascom Head, a printer, 
began the publication in Harrodsburg of a newspaper, called "The American." 
It was a Democratic organ, ami was opposed bj another local paper called 
"The Union." Some warm controversies grew out of this situation, and it 
is to one of these we owe a bit of doggerel that gives us a description of 
tli- personal appearance of Jesse Head: 

"There is a man in our town. 
Who walks the streets in a dressing-gown; 
His nose is long and his hair is red, 
And he goes by the name of Jesse Head." 

Jesse Head was a man who made warm friends, and some pronounced 
enemies. One of these attempted either to kill or terrify Jesse Head. He 
waited for the minister as he was on his way to the Court House, and after 
Head had passed, he fired. Jesse Head turned hack and faced him. "If you 
meant to kill me, you are a coward," he said, "and if you thought to frighten 
me. you are a fool." 

For his day, Jesse Head was a well read man. His Library was listed 
tor sale ten years before his death, and it showed i|uite a remarkable range. 
There wire seven volumes of church history, and seven of Wesley's sermons, 
and two sets of Clarke's commentaries, and a goodly assortment of other 
books, those on .Methodism being prominent. 

The listing of these books reminds us of Jesse Head's financial affairs. 
That he did not accumulate money as a result of his ministerial labors, need 
not be affirmed. He did not prosper in his secular business. More than 
once he was close to the edge of insolvency. His son bought his house and 
his personal property, and held them in trust, so that the old preacher and 
his widow had a roof over their heads as long as they lived. Otherwise he 
might have been homeless. 

Jesse Head attained the age of three score and ten. and lived four addi- 
tional years. He died March L'2, 1842, and was buried with Masonic honors 
His wife lived until August 30, 1851. 'I be closing years of their lives ap- 
pear to have been uneventful. Their home was guaranteed to them by the 
faithfulness of their son, and they found means of supplying their simple 
wants. So they lived and finished their earthly pilgrimage, and had no 
•In am that we should gather here today to pay honor to their memo J y. 

Abraham Lincoln had not risen to fame when Jesse Head died. Jesse 
Head never heard of him. The minister had no occasion at any time during 
l.is life to think of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks as more likelv to at- 



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tain distinction than any of the other numerous couples whom from time 
to time he married. If Jesse Head had been told that eighty years after 
his death a company like this would gather about, his grave and pay tribute 
to his memory, it would have puzzled him to give a probable reason for 
such an improbable event, and if he had spent a year guessing he would 
never have been able to conjecture the real occasion of our coming. 

Let not the casual association of his name with the Lincoln family blind 
us to the real glory of this man, Jesse Head, a glory which he shared with 
hundreds of other pioneer preachers whose very' names are forgotten. Yet 
these were the men who came into a wilderness at a time when the thoughts 
of men were on the purchase of land and the fighting of Indians, and too 
often on the racing of horses and the drinking of whisky, and when it seemed 
that religion might be crowded wholly out of their lives and the life of the 
new civilization which they planted. These men, of whom Jesse Head was 
one, preserved the religious integrity of our civilization in one of its periods 
of crisis. 

Edward Everett Haln had a little poem in which he honored the nameless 
men who toiled for us before we were bom — the men who crossed the ocean 
and made homes in the wilderness. If we think of the men who crossed the 
mountains his lines would apply: 

"What was his name? I do not know his name; 
I only know he heard God's voice and came, 

Brought all he loved across the sea, 

And came to work for God and me. 
No pealing trumpet sounded forth his fame, 
He lived, he died; I do not know his name." 

Not all of these pioneer preachers were educated men. Very few of 
them had so many books as Jesse Head. Some of them might even be called 
ignorant. But I like to remember a wise remark of Governor Ford in his 
History of Illinois, in which he says that while the pioneer preachers were 
undoubtedly ignorant, no one of them had difficulty in finding congregations 
still more ignoranl. These men were adapted to their civilization. They 
preached a militant gospel, dogmatic, vigorous, and full of the terrors of 
hell. Their preaching in time brought a great revival, in which the future 
of Kentucky took on new life and hope. The wilderness had a baptism of 
fire. These backwoods preachers were the saviours of our Christian civiliza- 
tion in the new regions west of the mountains. In honoring one of them, 
this day, let us honor all of them, and with them their devoted and self-sacri- 
ficing wives. Nobly did they serve their generation, and worthily did they 
lay the foundations for much that is best in this generation, which for the 



most part has forgotten their graves and in many instances their very 
names. They were hard-handed men, accustomed to corn-plowing and horse- 
trading, and they lacked many clement.- which might appear desirable in 
a ministry; but liny were in earnest, and thev were part and parcel of the 
civilization which they helped to shape, and their influence was permanent 
and good. Their's was a work which brought with it little recognition and 
no financial reward; nor is it possible at this late day to recover their names. 
This grave, like the grave of the unknown private at Arlington, may well 
represent to us the unmarked irraves of all the men who rode through the 
woods in those early days, preaching and warning anil inviting men to turn 
tc God. 

Turn now from the preacher who performed the marriage to the couple 
whom he married. Thomas Lincoln, aged 28, and Nancy Hanks, aged 23, 
belonged, both of them, to what President Abraham Lincoln called "undis- 
tinguished families." The Lincolns had more distinction than the Hankses. 
Iiut there was nothing that gave promise that Thomas Lincoln in his rough 
jeans suit and Nancy Hanks in her linsey-woolsey, would ever become distin- 
guished. .Nor did they attain distinction. Vet they gave to America and 
the world one of the very greatest of our Presidents. 

We have many reasons for honoring Abraham Lincoln. One of them 
comes freshly to us this day as we stand by the grave of this homespun 
hero, .L se Head. Abraham Lincoln is part and parcel of America's own 
pioneer life. He typifies and exemplifies America; his life is a kind of epi- 
tome of our history, beginning as it does in the back woods, and reaching 
the crest of our civilization. When we honor Lincoln we honor primitive 
Kentucky, and primitive America. 

Well may Kentucky rejoice in every honor paid to this, her illustrious 
son. Illinois i- proud of his manhood, and Indiana of his boyhood; but Ken- 
tucky gave him birth. Abraham Lincoln belongs to no one State and to no 
one section. LJut Kentucky may well cherish in him her own honorable pride. 
She was his mother, and gave him to the world. 



The Program 



Procession of the Fraternal Orders, Women's Clubs and School Children of 
Harrodsburg, starting from the Lincoln Cabin on Old Fort Hill and pro- 
ceeding to the grave in Spring Hill Cemetery. 

K. B. Phillips and J. T. Ingram, Sr., Marshals 

Judge Ben Casey Allin, presiding. 
Invocation Rev. Jefferson Davis Redd 

Vocal Duet — "Whispering Hope" 

Miss Sue Johnson, Miss Ollie Morgan 

Original Poem Henry Cleveland Wood 

Address Rev. William E. Barton, D. D., of Chicago 

Unveiling of Monument 

By Mary Elizabeth Hutton and Jane Bird Hutton, great-great-great-grand- 
daughters of Rev. Jesse Head. 

Vocal Quartette — "Lead Kindly Light" 

Miss Sue Johnson, Mrs. J. Hal Grimes, Frank Douglas Curry, 
Burnett Alderson. 

Masonic Praver and Benediction Rev. S. S. Daughtry 



Mrs. J. Hal Grimes, Musical Director 



THE POEM 

By Mr. Hear] Cleveland Wood 



REV. JESSE HEAD 
Deacon Methodist Episcopal Church 
Read by the author at the dedication of the Head Monument in Spring 
Hill Cemetery, November 2. 1922. 

He was a man, God-tearing and austere, 

Bold in denunciation of all wrong, 

And fearless when he battled for the right. 

He worked in wood on week days at his bench, 

But on the Sabbath rode and preached The Word, 

Seeking to bring all sinners unto Christ. 

Within the counties where he worked and lived. 
He entered largely in the people's lives. 
Was one of them, shared joys and sorrows, too. 
Young couples wed — the groom in suit of jeans, 
His blushing bride in home-made cap and gown; 
Perchance the couple rode the selfsame nag. 

He little dreamed — this earnest man of God, 

When he united in the holy bonds 

Of matrimony these two simple lives, 

Tom Lincoln and his sweetheart, Nancy Hanks, 

In that rude cabin built of native logs 

On Beech Fork waters in the long ago — 

That from this lowly union there would spring 
A modern Moses to a captive race; 
A just man, fashioned in heroic mould — 
Of Hero's stuff — a fearless President — 
Emancipator — yet a Martyr, too — 
Abraham Lincoln — Man of Destiny. 

— Henry Cleveland Wood. 

Harrodsburg, Ky.. Nov. 2, 1922. 



The Dedication 

(From the Harrodsburg Herald, Nov. 2, 1922) 



Yesterday afternoon under clear autumn skies and in the presence of 
a large assemblage of people, the chaste and beautiful monument was un- 
veiled to Rev. Jesse Head, pioneer Methodist Circuit Rider, who on June 12, 
1806, married Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, the parents of Abraham 
Lincoln. The long procession formed before the little log cabin on Old Fort 
Hill, in which the marriage ceremony was said in those long ago days, and 
ended at Spring Hill Cemetery where the minister who performed the rite 
has been sleeping in an unmarked grave. Fraternal orders, school children, 
Historical Society and other organizations joined in the line of march, and 
many citizens and strangers in town gathered with them around the lowly 
mounds where sleep Jesse Head and his wife, Jane Ramsey Head. 

The program is given herewith in this paper and suffice to say here 
that was splendidly carried out, and each number was most effectively given. 
Dr. Barton's address was excellent and was listened to with deep interest 
by all, many hearing for the first time facts about the rugged and many- 
sided old pioneer preacher that were new to them. Among the most inter- 
esting was that he was the first to discover the medicinal merit of Graham 
Springs and it was this healthful water that is supposed to have drawn him 
to Harrodsburg to live in 1810. In the Draper historical collection is a letter 
from Gen. Robert McAfee in which he speaks of the wonderful medicinal 
springs that were discovered by Jesse Head. The entire address of Dr. Bar- 
ton will be given in the Herald next week as time is too short to publish it 
in this issue. In it he paid grateful tribute to Miss Mary Stephenson for 
her valuable aid in uncovering much of the forgotten records of Jesse Head's 
life in this community. 

Following his address the cloth that veiled the monument was lifted by 
little Misses Mary Elizabeth and Jane Bird Hutton, the great-great-great- 
granddaughters of Jesse Head. They are children of Editor and Mrs. D. M. 



Hutton and are descendants of the pioneer preacher on the maternal side. 
As they removed the crossed flags before the monument and lifted the white 
covering they made at attractive picture, linking the old generation that 
settled the new Kentucky with the new generation that is now enjoying the 
privileges and luxuries of the old Kentucky, that the struggles and hard- 
ships of the pioneers made possible. 

The monument itself is ideally fashioned for its purpose. It is of Ken- 
tucky marble set on a base of native limestone. It was made by the Brown 
.Monument Company, of this city. Inset in the marble, which is a deep cream 
color, is a handsome bronze tablet that was designed by Jules Berchen, of 
Chicago, an associate of Leonard Void, sculptor, who made the famous mask 
of Abraham Lincoln. The inscription is printed with this article. Dr. Bar- 
ton was the originator of the monument to Jesse Head and he made the first 
contribution to it. Funds have been contributed voluntarially from many 
sources by the admirers of Abraham Lincoln and descendants of the nigged 
old preacher, who was as Godly as he was fearless. It brings a belated 
tribute to the man whose life was spent in work among the earliest settlers 
h« re, anil who, in the conscientious course of his ministerial duties, left the 
record with his own signature attached, that removed the stigma on the 
birth of the Great Emancipator, that hung like a shadow over him until the 
day of his death. 

Dr. Barton is the author of several well known books of Lincoln history 
and it was while searching for material for these that he became interested 
in Jesse Head, and is now preparing a record of his life. 

A number of interested people from out of town attended the unveiling. 



The Inscription 



REV. JESSE BEAD 
JAN. 28, 1768— MARCH 22, 1842 
PREACHER— EDITOR— PATRIOT 
HE MARRIED JAN. 12, 180G, THOMAS LINCOLN AND 
NANCY HANKS, PARENTS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN ■ 

JANE RAMSEY I IK AH 

APRIL 10, 1768— AUG. 30, 1851 

MARRIED JESSE HEAD JAN. 9, 1789, AND NOBLY SHARED 

WITH HIM THE PRIVATIONS AND TRIALS OF 

THE LIFE OF A PIONEER PREACHER. 



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